On June 6, the Texas Attorney General published a news release announcing that the Attorney General has opened an investigation into several car manufacturers. The news release states that the investigation was opened “after widespread reporting that [car manufacturers] have secretly been collecting mass amounts of data about drivers directly from their vehicles and then selling that data to third parties.” Further, the release states that “car manufacturers and the third parties to whom they sold data are being instructed to produce documents relevant to their conduct. . .[and] to produce documents showing the disclosures they made to customers about the extent of their data collection practices and subsequent sale of their customers’ data.” This announcement follows an earlier news release from the Attorney General describing the launch of a data privacy and security initiative, which will enforce Texas’s privacy protection laws, including the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act that goes into effect on July 1.
